Page 46 of The Blue Rose
“Serena!” Mrs. Fredericks says gleefully with outstretched arms. I embrace her, and then her husband, the smile on my face feeling less forced than I expected.
“How are you, my dear? It’s been, what?” She looks at her husband for an answer she can’t seem to find.
“Five years,” he says without missing a beat.
She looks back at me and grabs my hands, making me wince. “Five years, oh my, has it really been that long?”
I squeeze her hands, tears pricking at the edge of my eyes. “It has.”
Her eyebrows raise to her hairline when she looks down at my hands, “Good heavens, what happened?” She asks, concern coating her voice.
I pull my hands away, the memory of last night coming to play like a movie in my mind. I rub at the cut, a small smile playing on my lips. I look up, meeting her worried eyes, “I accidentally cut it while cooking last night, trying to filet fish.”
Her brows pinch together accusingly, “Be more careful. I’m glad you’re okay.” I nod in response.
She looks at me with sad, knowing eyes. Eyes that hold a lifetime of stories, ones she has told me and Mom many times over. She has lived a long fulfilling life. A pang of jealousy washes over me, that she is here, and my mother is not, but it’s gone just as fast when I look into her blue wrinkled eyes.
“We’re glad you’re back, dear. Aren’t we, Jerry?” She nudges him, he finally looks at me with pitiful eyes, eyes he knows I don’t like to see.
“We have. We’ve missed your energy here.”
We stare at one another for a while, unsure of what to say, until we hear Mrs. Fredericks squeal. We both jump and look. She stands holding a new piece I just finished a few weeks ago.
It’s an autumn day, with the sun just setting painted in the background. There’s a silhouette of a couple kissing next to a motorcycle. Leaves the color of fire and passion drift down from a tree falling over and around them.
She stands staring, captivated at the sight, a single tear falling from her eye. “Oh, Jerry, doesn’t this take you back?”
He walks over to her, putting his arm around her, and looks down at the painting. You can see he, too, is getting lost in ashared memory, the two of them seeming to turn back time right in front of me. Looking up, he whispers, “How much?”
Smiling at the sight of them, I shake my head as he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. I grab his hands gently pushing him away. He persists and tries to hand me a hundred-dollar bill. I close his hand around the bill, and say, “I’ll take the story over this, whenever you have a chance, that is worth more than money to me.”
He smiles, nodding his head with understanding, and puts the money back in his pocket. Looking at his wife, he pulls her close, and says. “I like the way you tell the story more, Alice.”
Grabbing her hands, I squeeze them quickly before I sit her down in my chair. I walk over to my car and grab the other two I brought out of habit. Coming back, Jerry and I take a seat. With tearful eyes, ghosting her fingers across the painting, Alice begins her story.
“Back in the day, we used to ride as if we’d never have the chance again. We’d leave when the sun set, not returning until it rose again in the morning. We stopped riding fifteen years ago, when Jerry had his hip replaced. I could still ride, but it wasn’t the same without my Jer beside me. So we put up our bikes.” She looks down at the painting, running a hand over the bike. “Oh, how I miss the wind in my hair, the free flying feeling we used to get. We were birds, taking flight, everynight. Together.”
I sit there in silence, letting her tell her story and listening to it as if the words would pull me from the darkness I felt falling for once more. Reliving the memory with her as she spoke her words.
“This painting brings me back to one night in particular. It was autumn in Salem, and the leaves had just changed their colors. The weather, oh, the weather was perfect.” She looks up and stares at the sky and takes us into her memory. “It was closeto Halloween, and we all know how it gets here around October, especially with the tourists. The town was littered with people.”
I nod in understanding, cringing as I remember how it is about to become with October approaching.
“Back then, we all did more walking than driving.” She grabs her husband's hand and places it on her lap, his eyes locked on Alice as she fights the smile lifting her cheeks. “After a long day of window shopping, we go home and Jerry says he has a surprise for me.” She looks over to her husband with such loving eyes, the same excitement she’d felt all those years ago still in her voice. “We walk up the driveway, and he tells me to close my eyes, which, of course, I do, but I can’t help myself. I peek as soon as I hear him walk away. Once the garage opened, I gasped and saw a motorcycle, sitting there with a giant red bow on the seat, the same one my daddy used to drive. The same one I’d told Jer about growing up, some of my favorite memories are of helping my daddy fix, and ride that bike until it was well and truly a part of the road. I cried so much at the sight of it, it was a red 1942 Indian Jr Scout.”
I bite my lip, trying to hold my tears at bay. I’d hate to interrupt such a wonderful memory.
She looks over at me, still holding her husband's hand. “You probably don’t know what that is, before your time, but look it up later. It was a classic, for good reason too. Anyways, that night he took me out. I held on, and he drove. We explored Salem all night, as ifwewere the tourists. We stopped in the middle of nowhere, and there was a tree with leaves falling just like in your painting. We stood under that tree and watched the sun come up, in each other's arms. He kissed me, and that was the beginning of our biker journey together.”
Jerry brings his wife's wrinkled hand to his lips and kisses it. They stare at one another, so much love in their eyes. Love I hope to find one day.
The way their eyes shine while looking at one another, has me thinking of the green eyes that have given me the same look.
Alice breaks the stare and looks over at me. “Thank you for letting me relive this day.”
I shake my head, fighting tears as my heart drums in my chest. “No, thank you.”
We all get up, Jerry helping her, peaceful silence settling around us.Absolutely worth so much more than what money could buy.
